Water dripping off kids’ chins wastes 7 million gallons of water per year at each fountain, LAUSD says.

As the state reported today that Californians’ conservation efforts are slacking off, millions of gallons of water are still being wasted each year by LA Unified because of unnecessary flushing of the water fountains, a report revealed Tuesday.

Plans to end the practice won’t take place until the end of the 2017-18 school year, but board members expressed the need for higher urgency at a committee meeting Tuesday night and planned to notify the superintendent immediately.

“We have been spending a fortune flushing entire campuses when theoretically only 20 percent needed to be flushed at all,” said board member Monica Ratliff at the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee she runs. “That’s a lot of wasted water.”

The facilities division has spent $5 million of a $20 million program to upgrade and fix the 42,814 water fountains throughout LA Unified. The plan has also included installing bottle-filling stations at a cost of $4,135 each, which a few of the school board members seemed to think was too costly for the district, especially for the plans to include one or two at every school site.

“Couldn’t we teach the students to just tilt the bottle to fill it up?” asked Ratliff when hearing the cost of each new bubbler.

The water concerns come not only as the district is facing severe budget shortfalls in the near future but also as California officials noticed a severe drop in water saving measures over the past few months. Californians saved less than 18 percent in August, according to the state Water Resources Control Board, and the state is at a “yellow alert” status and is still in drought status.

Flushing the water fountains every day at LA Unified schools is being done out of an abundance of caution because of lead found in about 10 percent of them. Lead can affect the brain and nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.

“The district has been overly cautious when it comes to lead in the water, so we do more than what the environmental regulations suggest,” said Mark Hovatter, the district’s chief facilities officer. “But we do want to end the practice as soon as possible.”

If one fountain at any school registers any lead in the first 30 seconds, then all the faucets in the school must be run for at least 30 seconds every day. That’s 9,500 gallons of water a day, or nearly 2.5 million gallons a year going down the drain, most of it unnecessarily.

• Read more: Yes, you can drink the water. No lead scares here, LAUSD says.

“We took the ultra-conservative approach that if one fountain needed flushing we flush the whole campus,” Hovatter explained. “When we first started doing it we didn’t know a lot about lead in the water and wanted to be fully safe and fully educated.”

In fact, the nation’s second-largest school district was far ahead of national standards. LA Unified started the flushing in 1988, according to Robert Laughton, the director of the district’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety. That was long before federal warnings of lead in 1991, state legislation in 2009 and federal laws in 2011. Now fountains that show any lead levels are being replaced or taken out altogether.

“We all agree flushing is bad for a variety of reasons,” Hovatter said.

Ratliff pointed out, “At a meeting last week the superintendent said, ‘Please, please stop doing resolutions’ and what you’re telling me is that it sounds like this calls for a resolution. We have the power to change our policy. It sounds to me that what you’re saying is that we could identify the fountains that need to be flushed and do not need to flush the entire campus. I will send that along to the superintendent that we do that.”

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Already 11 percent of the school sites, or 113 schools, have been exempted from the daily flushing of the fountains, and schools continue to be added to the list. The district has surveyed 894 schools (89 percent of all school sites), completed sampling of 300 school sites (about 30 percent) and become better at water flushing compliance throughout the district, Hovatter said.

Among the myths, Laughton said, is that newer schools have cleaner water. That ended up not being true, and in their sampling, the district found an elementary school built in 1913 with 100 percent of the faucets without lead levels, while a middle school built in 1969 had only 65 percent deemed safe, while a high school built in 2009 had only 44 faucets deemed safe.

“Are you telling me, and I hesitate to ask, that there’s a school built in 1913 out there that is 100 percent safe and we are flushing the entire school every day anyway?” Ratliff asked.

Yes, for now, until that school gets added to the exemption list, Laughton said. But they are working to add as many schools as possible to the list and as fast as possible.

Chief Facilities Officer Mark Hovatter said nearly 2.5 million gallons of water each year is going down the drain, most of it needlessly.

“Somewhere along the way it became very uncool to drink water, and we take some of that responsibility upon ourselves,” Hovatter said. The fountains were put in sunny areas where the water became hot, or at the end of water lines where the water was stale. Some fountains weren’t cleaned regularly. Other fountains have filters that weren’t cleaned.

Melinda Rho, LA Department of Water and Power manager of regulatory affairs and consumer protection, spoke to the committee and explained how the water in Los Angeles was safe and among the best in the nation. She said it has been unnecessary to filter the water and that it gives the impression that drinking out of an unfiltered fountain is bad.

Hovatter said the district will eventually phase out fountains with filters, and that will cut down on maintenance.

Cutting back on flushing will also save an average of 500 hours a day or nearly 130,000 hours a year of custodial and administrative staffing “for them to focus on greater needs at the school sites,” Hovatter said.

Mathew Medrano, who teaches at Green Design School, is helping with a pilot program to get students to use reusable bottles.

The district is trying a pilot of getting students to carry water in reusable bottles that can be filled at a filling station. Mathew Medrano, a teacher at the Green Design School at Diego Rivera Learning Complex, brought half a dozen students to talk about the success of the program after it had been in place only a few months. The students took a survey and found that most students would pay about $5 for a reusable bottle with their school logo, then found a place to get them for $2.97 each. The profit was going to buy another bottle filling station to add to each of three floors of their school.

“We found that fewer students are buying water and using disposable bottles that contribute to the landfills,” Medrano said. “Anecdotally, people say that the water tastes like it’s from Arrowhead or Niagara, but it’s the same water as the other fountains on campus. It is definitely making drinking water cool again.”

Hovatter said he needs to have a staff of 42 people (he has 25 now and is looking for a few good plumbers). He said his goal is to include one or two of the bottle filling stations at every school, but it would require more money from the school board.

“I have a concern that it costs $4,000 per machine when they could just as easily tilt their bottles to fill them up,” Ratliff said.

Hovatter said that they figured out that there is a lot of water that gets lost when it drips off a child’s chin while slurping from a bubbler. That’s a loss of 7 million gallons of water a year for every fountain at LA Unified that the bottle filler stations would save.

“Any way we do it,” summed up board member Ref Rodriguez, “we need to figure out a way for kids to drink more water again.”

The board members asked for another report from Hovatter about the plans for the remaining water fountain funding and approximate costs.

LAUSD board President Steve Zimmer made an unusual appearance during public comment at Tuesday evening’s board meeting to urge people to vote.

Make sure you complete your ballot. That’s the message that came from LA Unified school board members at a committee meeting Tuesday night.

During the meeting, the board’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee heard a presentation from Pedro Salcido, the district’s co-director of government relations and legislative affairs, on key initiatives related to the school district on the Nov. 8 ballot.

This year’s ballot is crowded with 17 statewide initiatives. Among the questions to be determined are whether to repeal the death penalty, ban plastic bags and legalize marijuana.

The ballot for Los Angeles voters will also contain four city measures, and residents of Los Angeles County will vote on two county measures.

There are three statewide education-related ballot initiatives: a school facilities bond, the extension of an income tax for high-income earners, and an initiative to bring back bilingual education. Salcido also discussed a city measure that would bring changes to the governance structure of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. LA Unified is the utility’s largest customer.

Board President Steve Zimmer made an unusual appearance during public comment at the committee meeting because he does not serve on the committee. He encouraged those connected to LA Unified to register to vote by the Oct. 24 deadline and to get to the polls in November.

“It’s very important that we, who know how much our students have on the line in this election in so many ways, that we encourage folks, not only to go to the ballot box, but to complete the ballot,” Zimmer said. 

Teachers union members will be fanning out across neighborhoods on Thursday in cities throughout California encouraging voters to support Propositions 55 and 58. Members of the LA teachers union, UTLA, will be knocking on doors near LA Unified school sites.

Here are the measures:

Prop. 51

• authorizes $9 billion in bonds for new facilities or modernization upgrades to school facilities. It would generate $8.6 billion in interest.
• $7 billion would be allocated for K-12 public school facilities, and $2 billion would go to state community college facilities.
• Of the $7 billion for K-12, $3 billion would be for new school facilities, $3 billion for modernization of school facilities, $500 million for career and technical education programs and $500 million for charter schools.
• Of the $7 billion, $1.8 billion is already allocated because there is not enough money to fund these existing projects under the school facilities bond Prop. 1D passed in 2006, leaving $5.8 billion up for grabs, Salcido said.

How would LA Unified be affected?

Salcido said LA Unified has very few new construction projects in the pipeline, but he said the district could benefit from about $325 million for facilities modernization projects.

“We would take the money and spend it wisely,” said Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter.

The ballot measure is sponsored by home builders, school construction companies and others. It is supported by both state parties, the LA County Democratic Party and the LA Area Chamber of Commerce. The school board is also in support of it. Gov. Jerry Brown opposes it. A group called California Taxpayers and Educators Opposed to Sprawl and Developer Abuse is leading the opposition.

Supporters of the measure have raised $9.7 million so far, according to CALmatters. The top donors are Building Industry Association, Community College Facility Coalition and the Association of Realtors. The opponents haven’t raised any money.

See CALmatters’ summary of Prop. 51.

Prop. 55

• extends the income tax rates under Prop. 30 for individuals who earn more than $250,000 a year and couples who earn more than $500,000 a year for 12 years.
• expected to raise between $4 billion and $9 billion a year from 2019 to 2030.
• the sales tax component of Prop. 30 will be eliminated.
• most of the money would go to K-12 education, some money would be set aside for state community colleges and low-income healthcare programs.

If it doesn’t pass, Salcido said there would be $5.5 billion in state funding of K-12 education programs that would have to be cut.

“What it’s done is it’s allowed districts to climb out of the hole that took place between 2008 and 2012,” Salcido said, referring to cuts made following the Great Recession.

“It’s really about generating the necessary amount of dollars to prevent an impact to K-12 programs in the out years if there’s an economic downturn or a slowdown when it comes to funding for K-12 programs.”

“The board of education strongly supports Prop. 55, and I hope people will find it on the ballot,” said Monica Ratliff, who chairs the committee.

How would LA Unified be affected?

Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly said the district uses Prop. 30 funds to fund arts programs and to hire guidance counselors, and any funds raised by Prop. 55 would continue to support those programs.

The initiative’s supporters have spent $49.7 million on their campaign, according to CALmatters. Top donors include California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems and the California Teachers Association. The opponents haven’t raised any money.

The school board has also endorsed Prop. 55.

See CALmatters’ summary of Prop. 55.

Prop. 58

• reverses portions of Prop. 227 passed by voters in 1998, which mandates English learners must be taught in English.
• the state legislative analyst found no costs are associated with the initiative.
• under the current law, if a district wants a class to be taught in a language other than English, at least 20 students in one grade level have to request a waiver.

How would LA Unified be affected?

Salcido said if Prop. 58 is passed, the district will be able to expand bilingual education programs.

State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, is sponsoring the initiative. Keep English for the Children is a group organized to lead the opposition.

Supporters, including the California Teachers Association, have raised $1.1 million to promote a yes vote, according to CALmatters. The opponents haven’t raised any money.

The school board has unanimously endorsed Prop. 58.

See CALmatters’ summary of Prop. 58.

Read the Secretary of State’s voter reference guide here.

Measure RRR

While not an education-related measure, Salcido discussed Measure RRR, which will appear on the ballot for Los Angeles voters. It would amend the city charter to bring changes to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

LA Unified is the LADWP’s largest customer.

The measure proposes various reforms to the governance structure of the LADWP,  that board members must have certain qualifications and the utility must have a four-year strategic plan in place that will dictate rate increases.

The LA City Council has approved the measure.

Read more about the measure here.

Resolutions are listed on the LAUSD.net website.

Some frank talk among the LA School Board members recently led to questions about how many resolutions the board creates and how effective they are. But they’re also one of the best ways to get things done, members said.

Every school board meeting at LA Unified has a flurry of resolutions: It’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Let’s recognize “No One Eats Alone Day.” How about “Be Kind to Animals Week” or “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” or the “Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.”

Those are some of the 102 resolutions presented by the LA Unified school board in the past 15 months. Sure, most of them get approved unanimously without discussion. And yes, many have nothing to do with anything that goes on in the classroom.

But a candid discussion last week among the seven school board members and the superintendent revealed that some of them believe resolutions are the only way to get anything done at the district.

The discussion at the Committee of the Whole led to board members contemplating whether there are too many resolutions. Superintendent Michelle King agreed that perhaps there are too many and that the process could be streamlined.

“I’m not sure anything we do in these resolutions has any impact on what actually goes on in the classroom,” said board member Monica Ratliff. “If they celebrate everything we tell them to celebrate, they’d be celebrating all the time. Sure, they had to do breakfast in the classroom because we decided on that, but they had no choice. School reform has to happen in the classroom, but it’s not related to what we do here, I wish it would be.”

Sometimes the resolutions reflect a board member’s passions or pet causes. Monica Garcia introduces “Celebrating Latino Heritage Month” every year and has resolutions against bullying and honoring LGBT Pride. The board’s only African-American member, George McKenna, every year commemorates Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black Heritage Month in separate resolutions.

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Ref Rodriguez presented a resolution for Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month to introduce instructors working at the district who are living with the disease. Scott Schmerelson showcased teachers and students who are overcoming their issues when recognizing Dyslexia Awareness Month. But inevitably, those recognitions can add an extra half hour or hour of discussion to already long board meetings that can stretch to eight hours or more.

Since the new configuration of the school board was seated in July 2015, the number of resolutions introduced by each board member or the superintendent has topped 100. This does not include the board members who signed on to co-sponsor the resolutions, which many of them do.

Garcia and Ratliff have introduced the most resolutions, at 31 and 30 respectively, nearly 60 percent of all the resolutions presented during the past 15 months. The superintendent’s office (which included Ramon Cortines as well as King over that period) has introduced 14 resolutions, most of them cursory appointments to advisory boards run by the administration.

Board President Steve Zimmer has 10 resolutions in his name, most supporting or opposing legislation for which he has lobbied legislators in Sacramento or Washington on behalf of the district. Freshman board member Rodriguez and longtime member McKenna have five and six resolutions in their name, respectively, and newcomer Scott Schmerelson ties with veteran board member Richard Vladovic at introducing three over the past 15 months.

King pointed out that she would prefer the board members check in with her directly before drafting resolutions asking her office to do something. Zimmer said that the past three superintendents all begged the school board to curb the number of their resolutions.

“But it’s a Catch-22 because sometimes I think it’s the only way to be heard,” Ratliff said.

Discussions by the school board with the superintendent.

In between the obvious resolutions that call for “promoting healthy habits” or “Internet for all” or “supporting fair utility rates for schools,” there are some that address hotly debated topics in the district, such as working together with charter organizations, sharing facilities through Prop. 39 and changing the school calendar.

The need to change some of the procedures weighed heavily on some of the board members, as they mentioned the dozens of resolutions thrown their way. As Vladovic summed up, “Sometimes I leave a meeting more frustrated and drained than when we started.”

Monica Ratliff places a sticker on a list to identify dysfunctional school board characteristics.

Some school board decisions get ignored, all board meetings are too long and most decisions have nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom.

That’s some of the conversation that came out of an all-day session Tuesday with the LA Unified School Board and superintendent. The meeting, led by a private facilitator, was held to discuss the strategic plan and vision of the nation’s second-largest school district.

They didn’t make any binding commitments, but the discussion could lead to some major changes in the way the school board deals with the public, and how the superintendent deals with the board.

“Everybody knows low-performing schools should not exist, everybody knows this, so why does it still keep happening?” asked board member Monica Ratliff. She noted that the school board doesn’t have much to do with what goes on in the classroom and then answered her own question with: “There’s this giant bureaucracy and layers of bureaucracy and you can get help from one layer and then get stifled by another layer. And sometimes you have to go to a school board member and have that member advocate for them, but it should not have to be that way.”

Ratliff said that even the agreements made at board meetings seem to go nowhere. She said a few members nod in agreement, but sometimes nothing gets done unless she writes a resolution forcing them all to vote on it.

“I see some people (on the board) throw out the same ideas over and over and we all nod our heads and it doesn’t go anywhere,” Ratliff said.

Board member George McKenna agreed and said, “When we throw out an idea, who is supposed to pick up on it? The superintendent? I hope others can pick up on it and will come up with something.”

Superintendent Michelle King admitted that she has to prioritize what the board throws at her. “There are great ideas, but we can’t take the focus off of where we have to go,” King told the board. She noted that if there are five new things for her to do that are suggested by the board, and money is already allocated for other things they must do, she has to “clear the must-haves and stay centered and focused on what is aligned to our mission and where we are trying to go.”

King said she preferred that school board members come to her directly with issues. “I prefer direct contact and we can talk about issues, that works best for me,” she said. “I appreciate clear expectations and where it will go, and that is how I operate. The more the specific the better.” That way, board members can avoid so many resolutions.

Facilitator Jeff Nelsen

McKenna said to King, “I’m concerned what stimulates your office is a private meeting with a board member. You start doing something because a board member is asking.”

The issues brought up were not supposed to lead to direct solutions, said facilitator Jeff Nelsen, of Targeted Leadership Consulting. A coach to more than 2,000 principals and school leadership teams over the past decade, Nelsen said the exercise with the board is to identify dysfunctions, and he said, “some underlying issues naturally surfaced.”

For example, the board members and superintendent were to put dots next to items on a board that had a list of dysfunctional characteristics. Most of them put dots next to: “Disagreement among members on goals and processes,” while others pointed out “Unfocused agenda that wastes time on unimportant, peripheral issues.” A few noted: “Disagreements get personal in public” and “Members represent special interest groups or only certain areas of the district.”

Others suggested problems, including: “Board members play to other district staff, go around superintendent” and “Board plays favorites with press.”

“I think as a board we get in your way,” board member Ref Rodriguez told the superintendent. “You report to seven people rather than one board.”

King suggested that some decisions like business contracts could be handled during the various committee meetings rather than the marathon monthly board meetings that often start at 9 a.m. with closed sessions and then start again at 1 p.m. and often last until 9 p.m.

“It takes me a whole day to recover from those board meetings, I would like a more humane process,” said board President Steve Zimmer, who is in charge of the agenda for the board meetings.

Board members threw out some ideas, such as moving closed sessions to another day, getting board materials earlier than the Friday before the meeting and holding more board meetings.

The strategic plan is discussed at a meeting held at USC.

Rodriguez said some media reports “try to polarize us as a result of expressing our viewpoints and that is a shame.” He admitted, “My 4-year-old self may come out, but there’s so much value that we have different perspectives.”

King said she doesn’t mind the diversity of the board and said, “It is healthy to see the diversity of the board and their districts and how it all fits together as one. It is healthy to be aware of what it looks like in other parts of the district and it’s really not the same. We talk about poverty and there is poverty everywhere, but it does not look same everywhere.”

King suggested field trips or meetings in other parts of the district to see the diversity. Board member Richard Vladovic, who said he has worked in every district, said, “I don’t think that would be helpful for me.”

Vladovic suggested that the district consider decentralizing or even breaking up more to allow more local control.

“We as a district can’t change instruction, we can tinker with it, but the real change works at the school,” Vladovic said. “We need to stop thinking central, we need to divest ourselves of that.”

King agreed, adding, “I don’t believe one size fits all, and each school has a unique DNA. I need to see them get the results and not dictate that this is the way you need to do it. I agree that decentralizing is one of the best ways to serve the kids with the budget.”

Vladovic said he remains frustrated that the same schools continue to fail and said some solutions have become political. He said, “Union leadership doesn’t share our vision. State and federal laws don’t necessarily share our vision. We’re all together in this.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson said that when he asks staff a simple question, he often gets back a detailed five-page report that isn’t necessary. King defended the process and said, “Not every board member is satisfied with the same level of response.”

Another idea that came up is putting high-performing teachers in low-performing schools. Ratliff suggested that teachers would go if there were incentives, but McKenna said the existing teachers may resent the newcomers.

Zimmer suggested increased investments in 3-year-olds not yet into the school system. McKenna replied, “Why should we make investments on 3-year-olds when we are graduating students who cannot read?”

Zimmer said, “I am interested in a revolution of mindset and how it can be a dynamic and synergistic confluence that has to come from the messaging and framing from the district level.”

Zimmer and board member Monica Garcia both said they wanted to learn more from employees who have chosen to educate their children in the schools they work at, even though those schools may not be their neighborhood schools. Their choices show the schools are doing something right. “You want to have people proud of the school they send their children to, and we should look at that. I do not want to see any school tumble.”

Rodriguez quipped, “I have the intestinal fortitude to take on the lowest-performing schools, but I take a lot of Tums.”

School board members and facilitator Jeff Nelsen (far right) at USC’s Caruso Catholic Center for a special committee meeting.

LA Unified’s three-year strategic plan lacks a clear mission statement.

That was the consensus of an all-day school board session Tuesday. So the seven board members decided to fix it, landing on the goal of a 100 percent graduation rate. Yet the draft of the strategic plan remains light on exactly how to accomplish it.

Because even with every teacher and principal knowing that 100 percent graduation will be the ultimate goal for the district, the three-year plan presented by Superintendent Michelle King offers targets that expect only 81 percent graduation by 2018-2019, and only 52 percent of students getting a C or better in the A-G classes required for graduation. Board members agreed that while a 10-point increase in the graduation rate to 75 percent from the 2010-2011 school year was significant, it wasn’t enough.

Draft of strategic plan targets.

The strategic plan does not directly address what King has previously acknowledged as two of the most pressing issues facing the district: the decrease in enrollment and a serious financial deficit, which she addressed last spring when she held a series of meetings before the budget was approved to discuss major challenges.

During Tuesday’s discussion at the Committee of the Whole at USC’s Caruso Catholic Center, school board President Steve Zimmer said a number of times, “I would argue that people don’t have a sense of mission” in the district. He insisted, “This discussion today is so important. We’ve got to coalesce about something.”

In a brainstorming session Tuesday that was described in the agenda as discussing “vision elements and core values” rather than specifics of the strategic plan, the school board was led by Jeff Nelsen of Targeted Leadership Consulting who has coached more than 2,000 principals and school leaders over the past decade.

“I will argue today that we should revisit the goals,” Zimmer said. “None of us is OK with 75 percent graduation, and we are being dishonest if we think so.”

Zimmer’s preferred goals are to eradicate the school readiness gap and have every graduate be bilingual and bi-literate. “We can lead the state and the nation with this,” he said.

But Zimmer was willing to let go of his ambitious goals to allow for one singular goal that the board agreed on that could encompass other goals. “We can really make real that we don’t give up on a single kid,”  Zimmer said. “We can lead in that area too.”

Zimmer told his fellow board members, “I don’t think we have a mission sense right now, and I think it’s our role to create it. And it has to be big, and the strategic plan should fall behind it. The strategic plan should be about implementing a broad mission.”

School board members with Superintendent Michelle King and facilitator Jeff Nelsen.

While King’s draft plan sets a goal of 100 percent graduation, she conceded Tuesday it wasn’t the sole clear mandate. “Heretofore, it’s about graduation,” she told the seven board members. “It’s about getting students to graduation and all that entails.”

In the initial draft, dated Aug. 3, the mission statement reads: “Embracing our diversity to educate LA’s youth, ensure academic achievement and empower tomorrow’s leaders. We are LA Unified.”

And the strategic plan does not include the 100 graduation rate in its seven targeted accomplishments with benchmarks to be hit in the next three years.

The seven goals included a 24 percent increase in school pathways such as magnets, dual-language immersion and Linked Learning programs; a 30 percent decrease in chronic absenteeism; and 100 percent access to quality art instruction, a parent computer program and restorative justice practices. Two other goals — of high school students concurrently enrolling in community college and an increase in bilingual, bi-literate graduates — did not have numerical targets yet.

“We can have all the mission statements in the world, but if it doesn’t translate to action, it doesn’t matter,” board member Monica Ratliff said.

Ratliff said that once every teacher is on board with a unified mission, then everything they do, from preschool to third grade to fifth grade, to children with trauma and more, should all lead to a child graduating from high school. “That provides us with a very clear mission that everything feeds into,” she said.

But can the district ever get to 100 percent graduation, asked board member George McKenna? “I have a problem with 100 percent graduation, it’s like a trap,” McKenna said. He pointed out that students get to the next grade simply by their birthdays, not because they are academically equipped to go to the next grade level. “How do you reconcile that we’ll never get to 100 percent graduation?”

King said some pilot schools in the district have reached 100 percent graduation and they are looking at how to replicate those programs. But she also pointed out that the one-size-fits-all approach that the district used in the past doesn’t work for every district school.

King acknowledged, “If there is a common vision and direction that is set forth and folks know where you want to go, it’s better than having competing multiple agendas.” She said, “You can’t go anywhere by spinning around about this one and that one, all that energy dissipates.” She said she plans to outline clear messages that don’t contradict each other and then plans to get the word out to kids, parents, educators and all school stakeholders.

Michelle King at the white board with Jeff Nelsen, facilitator.

Board members Ref Rodriguez and Zimmer both pointed out that statistics prove that early education helps achieve college-ready graduates.

Board member Scott Schmerelson added, “I believe most people think they work for the district, they don’t work for the kids. They forget for whom they are working.”

Board member Richard Vladovic said, “The same schools are still failing and I believe we can do better. It’s about leadership and good teaching and we’re not putting our resources where the greatest need is. I believe we have to do it now, time is running out.”

Board member Monica Garcia said she champions the 100 percent graduation goal and they all need to work out what can be done most immediately.

Zimmer pointed out that King has the respect of the teachers. “You have more trust than any superintendent has had,” Zimmer said. “You inspire trust amongst our ranks, and it’s our job to establish this mission sense once again.”

King acknowledged that the “superintendent represents the image of the district” and that “once we have what we want to do, I will go out again when I can engage (parents and teachers) face-to-face” to explain how they will accomplish their mission.

“We want graduation, bar none, not just college eligible but also getting students to be productive citizens,” King said. “Getting them to get a diploma in hand and being eligible to get to college, if that’s their choice, and everything else that supports that happening” is now the district’s clear mission, she said.

Nelsen, who monitored the discussion, said afterward that the meeting went well, and that often large urban districts don’t have as cohesive a mission as LA Unified does. He said the meeting helped “get some closure around what is the focus” for the district. He added, “I was impressed on how open and honest the board members were with a room full of people.”

The room contained about a dozen onlookers, half staff members and half media. The school board members, King and Nelsen sat around a boardroom table with religious iconography hanging over them and bulletin boards listing characteristics of a successful superintendent and school board. Although the committee meeting wasn’t televised live as meetings at LA Unified headquarters usually are, an audio recording is expected to be available in the next few days, said Board Secretariat Jefferson Crain.

The off-site meetings held outside the regular Beaudry headquarters of the school district are considered “field trips” for the board, and although they are still open to the public, the off-site locations usually discourage the public from making comments. Vladovic said Tuesday that public comments made before the monthly closed sessions end up extending the board meetings much longer than anticipated.

King said she would revamp the strategic plan in two weeks and then discuss the changes at the Oct. 25 meeting of the Committee of the Whole set for 2 p.m., although it is not yet clear where it will be held.

Charter school supporters outside LA Unified headquarters in 2012. (Courtesy: CCSA)

Over 2,000 parents, students and supporters of charter schools are expected to attend a “Rally in the Valley” on Saturday to advocate for pro-charter policies, as well as to celebrate the 25th anniversary of charter schools coming to LA Unified. The first several charter schools to open in the district were in the San Fernando Valley, including Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, where the rally will begin.

The rally, which is being hosted by California Charter Schools Association Families, will include a march from Vaughn Next Century Learning Center at 9:30 a.m. to nearby Vaughn G3 (Green Global Generation) before a public program that will feature speeches from LA Unified school board member Monica Ratliff and Congressman Tony Cardenas. Board members Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez are also scheduled to be in attendance, as well as Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra and the four candidates running to replace Ratliff on the LA Unified board. Ratliff, who represents the East San Fernando Valley where the Vaughn schools are located, announced in June that she will be running for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.

“Ratliff has proven herself to be a thoughtful, independent voice on the board and so results focused. She has been a model for what her community is looking for from a school board member,” said Jason Mandell, spokesperson for the California Charter Schools Association.

The rally comes after a year of increased tension between LA Unified’s charter supporters and traditional school supporters, as well as some more peaceful moves recently. In February, 23 charter operators sent a letter to the school board complaining about what they said was increased scrutiny of charter schools during the application and renewal process. Another point of conflict was an early draft of what became the Great Public Schools Now plan to fund successful school models at LA Unified. The early draft called for expanding charter schools to enroll half of all the district’s students in eight years and was met with strong opposition, including from board President Steve Zimmer, but has since been amended to include magnets, district schools and other successful models.

Since taking office in January, Superintendent Michelle King has sought to ease tensions between charters and traditional supporters. Her efforts culminated in a “Promising Practices” forum in July that brought together charter leaders and traditional school leaders to share ideas and practices. At the forum, Zimmer gave a speech that was seen by many charter leaders as a call for détente when he said both sides should “work together” to make students’ dreams come true.

Despite the forum, conflict still exists. The LA teachers union, UTLA, recently launched a media campaign that includes an anti-charter agenda and also announced a 10-point plan that includes a push to change state law to increase oversight of charters.

Aside from celebrating charter schools, the rally “will also call upon elected representatives in local and state government to support pro-charter policies, including the expansion of high-quality charters, better facilities for charter students, and an end to the politics and rhetoric challenging parents’ right to choose the best public school for their children,” according to a press release from California Charter Schools Association Families.

Waiting to speak about a Green Dot charter school.

Charter families have lined up at dawn in biting cold winds holding babies. They’ve sweated it out for hours standing around ice chests or taking turns under canopies. They’ve waited hours—sometimes nearly a full a day—to get into an LA Unified school board meeting. Then, they wait hours more just to be heard.

School Board President Steve Zimmer is out to change that, especially since next week’s school board meeting on Sept. 20 is expected to have many items involving charter schools.

“First and foremost, I want folks to know that we are committed to changing that so they will not be waiting all day and not know when their items will come up before the board,” Zimmer said at the last board meeting. “We are actively trying to get better on this.”

It’s an idea that will help all speakers on any topic who come to address the LA Unified meetings, but it will specifically help charter school families. Many of the agenda items that draw the most speakers involve charter renewals or questions about charter schools that the school board oversees. Parents, teachers and students come to sign up to speak to the school board.

The once-a-month marathon-length school board meetings typically go from 9 a.m. for closed session personnel items until well past 9 p.m. Zimmer promised the public and his fellow school board members that when he was elected as president for the second year he would try to fix the long waits by the public.

“When charter items are being heard, having folks wait all day is not something we want to continue,” Zimmer said.

During the open section of their Closed Session meeting on Aug. 23, other school board members weighed in on rectifying the situation about 54 minutes into the meeting. Board member Monica Ratliff considered making a motion or resolution to come up with a solution.

“I feel like we talked about it, but I do not feel like it’s moving forward and I’m concerned that it’s not happening,” Ratliff said.

Zimmer assured Ratliff and the other board members that the request would be followed. Board member Monica Garcia suggested that the district’s Charter School Office also help notify the schools on the agenda.

“There should also be some trust that when you say something is going to happen, that it actually happens at that time,” Garcia said.

Jason Mandell of the California Charter Schools Association said he welcomes the new procedures planned by the school board because the long waits have resulted in complaints and frustration for the charter school families. He said he has been notified of a “time certain” for charter school issues for the next meeting. And although his group would prefer an entirely separate meeting for charter issues, this is a step in the right direction, he said.

“Anything is better than it was before, and overall we are happy because it is easier for families, teachers and school leaders to speak to the school board without having to wait eight to 10 hours,” Mandell said.

Board secretariat Jefferson Crain said emails will be sent to 1,600 people who receive school board news that will indicate specific times for agenda items, most likely after 6 p.m. to make it easier for working parents and teachers.

“Despite past efforts and speaking directly to some people, they still chose to come at 6 in the morning,” Crain said. “We do not want to have a separate meeting for specific types of issues.”

Superintendent Michelle King said her office would conduct a survey to get some input into how to best solve the long lines and waiting issues.

Zimmer said, “We want to make the best way for people to be heard. I want the maximum amount of people to speak and don’t want folks here late into the evening.”

He added, “Clearly the way we did it last year is not something we want to continue.”

The next regular board meeting is set for Sept. 20 with closed session items discussed at 9 a.m. The open session is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the School Board Auditorium at 333 S. Beaudry Ave. Charter school items will have a “time certain” starting at 6 p.m., and the order of business will be posted on Sept. 14.

Photos that were presented in the Organic Waste Recycling report.

LA Unified throws away an average of one ton of food per school every week. That’s the equivalent of 600 tons of organic waste for the entire district each week, or “equivalent to 200 elephants of waste a week,” said Robert Laughton, director of the school district’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety.

Laughton gave a report Tuesday at the first school board committee meeting of the new school year, the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee chaired by Monica Ratliff.

Although it sounds like a lot of wasted food, the district has made improvements and continues to train schools about recycling every year, Laughton said. In five years, the cost of the recycling program has dropped from $9.5 million to $5.2 million a year.

On Friday the school district will issue a Request for Proposals for the recycling program, which has been operated for the past few years by Republic Services. The district will look at all options when Republic’s contract concludes at the end of 2016.

Meanwhile, school board members cited other problems with the waste and plan to bring in the new Food Services director, Joseph Vaughn, at the next budget committee meeting. The cost of the food waste was not addressed Tuesday.

Most notably, Ratliff was surprised that schools are directed for environmental reasons not to pour unused milk down the drain, pointing out photographs in Laughton’s presentation taken this week at district schools.

Robert Laughton, director of LA Unified’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety.

“So, we can’t put milk in the drain and they’re putting milk in these black trash bags,” Ratliff said. “We see that milk is being poured into the trash can. So, we’re serving milk, then pouring milk into black trash bags and then carting the milk to another county to eliminate it.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson chimed in: “And then children are dragging those bags across campus and they leak all over, and we’re not supposed to water it down because of water savings.”

Laughton said, “I know that’s not a good situation, but we will have to wash it down.”

Ratliff said, “That’s a terrible situation. It seems pretty terrible.”

The school district is trying to cut back on waste to comply with statewide mandatory organic recycling restrictions signed by Gov. Brown in 2014. The law requires large businesses to begin recycling organic waste starting in April 2016 to encourage composting and reduce the amount of waste going to landfills.

Another way to reduce food waste is a food donation system but for now there are many restrictions. For example, the only food that can be donated is extras that weren’t served.

Schmerelson, who worked as a school principal before being elected to the school board, said he knew of many food banks that wanted to take the food. But “the rules and restrictions and insurance are so convoluted that people just give up and don’t do it.”

Meanwhile, Laughton said that 400 schools have implemented recycling programs so far, and every school gets comprehensive training each year. Republic has expanded the recycling training programs and has held essay contests for students.

Meanwhile, Ratliff asked what the penalties were if the organic recycling demands were not met.

“They have yet to determine that,” Laughton replied.

Today, at 29, Imelda Padilla  joins the race for District 6, becoming the youngest person in recent memory to run for Los Angeles Unified School Board. She is seeking the seat being vacated by Monica Ratliff, who is running for Los Angeles City Council. Joanne Baltierrez-Fernandez and Araz Parseghian have also announced their intention to run for the seat.

“I am a true product of this community,” Padilla said. “I have walked every street in the district, I know every school, and I have teachers, principals and students urging me to run.”

One of those encouraging her is Ratliff herself, who is not yet fully endorsing anyone in the race but was impressed with Padilla and suggested in November that she run for the office. “I have watched some of the community organizing she has done, and heard her speak, and she is a very impressive young woman,” Ratliff said. “I think she would add an amazing voice to the school board.”

Ratliff said she may ask candidates to fill out a personal questionnaire for her before she endorses any candidate. The primary election is March 7.

A self-identified “Chicana,” Padilla said she is a first-generation politicized Mexican-American. She grew up in Sun Valley, where she still lives today. Her mother worked at an airplane factory, and her father was a gardener. She has two older sisters who have master’s degrees and a younger brother who has attended college but not yet finished. Her older brother, who protected her from being bullied when she had rickets, is now incarcerated because “he had very bad friends, but he was a big influence,” she said.

Imelda Padilla with some nieces and nephews in front of Roscoe Elementary, where she attended.

She attended Roscoe Elementary, then went to Byrd Middle School Magnet and Francis Polytechnic Senior High before it was a pilot school. Her sister now teaches there. Padilla graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in philosophy and Chicano studies.

For the past year and a half, Padilla worked for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, or LAANE, an advocacy organization. Padilla worked on the Raise the Wage campaign that led to the historic vote that will raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020 in Los Angeles County.

She left what she calls “a lucrative job” to run for the school board. She doesn’t think it’s right to keep her job because LAANE is launching an educational campaign and it could be considered a conflict.

“I observed that there are teachers who would be perfect, and understood the policy and politics of the school board, but were not willing to leave the classroom,” Padilla said. “When people gave me the suggestion, I slept on it and thought that I would have a lot to contribute.”

Some assessments of LA Unified she refuses to believe: “One is that LAUSD schools are failures, period; and another is the conversation of neighborhood schools versus charter schools.” She doesn’t believe there has to be a battle.

She met with members of charter organizations and as well as unions, and she attended the Promising Practices forum over the summer where charter teachers and traditional school teachers shared best practices.

“This us-versus-them attitude I find personally offensive,” Padilla said. “Specifically, in my community, I find that parents have utilized both systems, where they like charters for middle school, but then prefer district high schools for the big sports facilities and other opportunities, like additional counselors and more federal money going to the schools.”

She has heard of many local successful charters and also ones that are noted for simply handing out worksheets without showing much educational improvement. She has also been told by some of her constituents that some charter schools have cherry-picked higher-performing students, and she wants to help figure out which schools may be giving charters a bad name.

She prefers to remain grassroots, like Ratliff did during her campaign even when facing big money being funneled to her competitors.

“I also plan to reach voters that don’t have kids in the schools, but they may live near the schools, and bad schools are bad neighbors,” Padilla said.

She has yet to meet Superintendent Michelle King but appreciates that King is also a product of LA Unified and understands the district. That’s comforting to Padilla, who has 12 nieces and nephews attending district schools.

Although Padilla could be working with school board members who are more than twice her age, she pointed out that she has worked with a diversity of people throughout her organizing career.

“I don’t think I’m too young; it’s about knowing what the job of a school board member does,” Padilla explained. Another school board candidate, in District 4, Nick Melvoin, is 30.

She added, “I’m good at dealing with complicated and controversial issues, like co-location of school sites.” She worked on labor issues for SEIU, environmental concerns for Pacoima Beautiful and community issues for the City of Los Angeles.

She is boning up on budget issues and said there are ideas in the findings of the Independent Financial Review Panel that should be implemented immediately. “I am shocked that we are losing so much money because teachers don’t want direct deposit,” Padilla said. “Get with the program, the technology is there. That may sound a little oppressive, but that sounds like something that can be addressed easily.”

She wants to take a realistic approach to technology and wants to reassess the one-to-one push for computers for every student.

“It is low-key kind of insulting and unrealistic, and we need to do a real assessment to (see) what the need is,” Padilla said. “Bottom line is families do have at least one computer, and they have phones, but they can’t always pay for the wireless connection every month. Maybe we should think of schools as wi-fi hubs.”

Padilla said she knows it could be a tough campaign, but she’s tough, as a P.E. teacher told her years ago.

“He told me he understood where my toughness came from,” Padilla said, but that “I could smile more. That stuck with me to this day.”

School board candidate facts

Name: Imelda Padilla

Age: 29

Job: Community organizer for Pacoima Beautiful, then with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and started her own non-profit called Together We Do More, which aims to help middle and high school students start to think about higher education and professional development at a young age.

Married: no

Children in LAUSD: none

Did candidate attend LAUSD: Roscoe Elementary, Byrd Middle School and Polytechnic High School

Lives: In childhood home in Sun Valley

Platform – key items: Fair funding for schools, improved academy performance and increased parental and community involvement.

Campaign money raised:

Key endorsements: UTLA, SEIU Local 99, Los Angeles County Democratic Party, Los Angeles School Police Association, International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Campaign website: imeldaforschoolboard.com

Performing arts teacher Sue Freitag of El Camino Real Charter High School.

A $1,139 dinner at a steakhouse. A $95 bottle of fine Syrah wine. A $73 bill for flowers.

Those charges and others made by staff of a successful charter school were cited this week at an LA Unified School Board meeting and led the district to take the first steps to revoking the school’s charter.

El Camino Real Charter High School, which educates 3,600 students in the west San Fernando Valley, was given a Notice of Violations Tuesday that they must answer by Sept. 23, or the district could hold a public hearing to decide whether to revoke the school’s charter and return it to traditional district school status.

On Friday morning, all of the correspondence between the district and the school that was provided to the school board members was made public as per a request by board member Monica Ratliff.

While some of the school board members seemed outraged about the charges against the charter school in more than an hour of debate Tuesday, many teachers who spoke in support of the school said they felt that the district was being too harsh on the school. Some of them supported the expenses on lavish dinners, even though the district rules wouldn’t allow such practices for their own traditional schools.

“There are some things that need to be negotiated, and that may mean taking you out to dinner,” said teacher Sue Freitag. “I think the district is being unreasonable. Once again, it’s a huge bureaucracy trying to tell us all what to do. Charters are supposed to be independent.”

Marshall Mayotte, El Camino Real chief business officer

Freitag taught at the school for 14 years when it was a district school and after it became an independent charter school. She is also a member of the teachers union, UTLA, and notes that she is making 7 percent more than she did as a traditional school teacher. She said she has been part of the school family for 32 years, going back to being a student there.

“This school has had a pristine reputation in academics and the arts and it hurts me personally to see our reputation under scrutiny,” Freitag testified to the school board on Tuesday. “I question the charter school division as to why these issues were not brought up prior to the school year?” Freitag, who also is in charge of the theater program at the school, said, “I’m here for students, they deserve a safe school environment free of political interference.”

The teachers at El Camino Real will be meeting after school on Friday with UTLA members to discuss the issues with the school. The teachers have a separately negotiated UTLA contract that is different than the one for the overall district.

At Tuesday’s meeting, school board member Richard Vladovic said he sifted through the thousand of expenses of El Camino and asked, “Is it common to ask school funds to pay for a corkage fee? Can you use money meant for the students to pay the price of a bottle of wine? Can they purchase alcohol with school money? … If an LA principal did that, what would probably happen?”

Schools have done that, but they are told it’s against district policy, school officials said. Superintendent Michelle King shook her head and said, “There would be an investigation, and appropriate action would follow. No, we wouldn’t say it’s OK.”

Vladovic added that the school was asked months ago about the charges of “significant meals at restaurants and who attended the meetings and what they were for, and they did not respond.”

Jose Cole-Gutierrez, director of the district’s Charter Schools Division that brought the vote for the Notice of Violations to the school board, said his office noted the “seemingly exorbitant personal and improper expenses” including first-class travel and other expenses into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said the school has “the opportunity to remedy concerns noted” including charges on credit cards charged to the school that includes unauthorized travel expense. Although charter schools run independently, they must still follow some overall district rules and procedures, and their charters are renewed by the school board every five years but can be revoked at any time.

“We noted credit card activity that is still problematic,” Cole-Gutierrez said. “It does not prohibit the use of personal expenses. It discourages it, but does not prohibit it.” He said the district’s charter division asked for clarifications for the past two years.

School board President Steve Zimmer noted that the Notices to Cure from the charter division are common requests, and that the school board doesn’t plan to revoke the school’s charter immediately. Other school board members expressed serious concerns.

“This does not reflect on a great school, I have major concerns,” Vladovic concluded. “Do we treat schools that are still LAUSD property, as opposed to charter schools on independent sites, differently? No, so they are all treated the same.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson, who represents the district where El Camino is located, pointed out that each of the teachers speaking for the school was passionate and said “the charter school is excellent and used to have a stellar reputation.” Schmerelson noted a media interview with a school representative who said there was a lot of money in the school’s treasury and the expenses weren’t of concern.

“You can’t use public money like that,” Schmerelson said. “What bothers me the most is the arrogance, the arrogance, on the news, as if we’re the bad guys. We like the school, I don’t want to revoke the charter, I think it’s a great school. But you have to play fair and have to be fair with public money.”

Schmerelson said he received many emails from faculty members who said they were happy with the school, but unhappy with the administrators who created these problems. “The great majority of the emails I received were for the school, but against the deeds that were done,” Schmerelson said.

El Camino attorney Janelle Ruley

In the charter school’s own by-laws, it notes that purchases for staff meals must be pre-approved and “each department has a budget of $50/employee/year for meals.”

Janelle Ruley, a charter rights attorney of Young, Minney & Corr representing the school’s governing board, said the school district’s recent action “feels like a bait-and-switch sucker punch.” She said the school board’s actions are unproductive and said the school answered all the questions in a timely manner and changed some school policies.

“Like Charlie Brown kicking a football, charter schools are set up to make compliance mistakes and they’re heavily penalized when they actually do,” Ruley said. She added that the school board action “will expose the district to liability.” Ruley said the school plans to answer all the questions within the deadline, but that didn’t stop the teachers and families from being angry.

Teacher Gail Turner-Graham

Teacher Gail Turner-Graham pointed out that “El Camino takes care of its teachers” with an average salary scale of $90,000 per teacher last year. She said the school increased classes, clubs and extracurricular activities by more than 15 percent and two college counselors are dedicated specifically for college planning and helping students with credit recovery. She said the school has a waiting list of 1,000 students and has “established a lean operating system,” and support staff increased by more than 40 percent.

Softball coach and teacher Lori Chandler said she had taught at the school since 1985 and when they first talked about going charter. “At the time the faculty lacked confidence and a majority was not in favor, but five years ago was very different and the faculty fully supported it,” said Chandler who also graduated from the high school. “That was the very best thing that happened to El Camino Real. Being a charter school means decisions are made at the school level.”

Chandler pointed out the school won 97 awards in the past five years in athletics. She suggested that the district wanted to take back the school because it was thriving so well and had several million dollars in their coffers for retiree benefits. “Perhaps that’s the problem, we are thriving too much,” said Chandler, who devoted 33 years to the school.

Lori Chandler, teacher and alum at El Camino Real.

District officials said they first notified the school of concerns last year, on Sept. 29, 2015 and issued a “Notice to Cure” to explain the irregularities by Oct. 30, 2015.

But the faculty and students didn’t know of the issues at the school until the first week of school this year, according to a science teacher at the school for the past 14 years, Dean Sodek. He said the faculty and parents were surprised and it was like “having a kitchen sink lobbed at us” by the district.

Sodek said the district paid a total of $1.2 million in oversight fees over the past five years to the district. He said the district charter office should offer more assistance to the school. He and other staff members said the district’s actions have shaken up the school.

“Please try to understand our frustration,” said the school’s ‎director of marketing, Melanie Horton. She said the district’s actions were “distracting and scaring our students and staff.”

Dermot Givens, an El Camino parent.

Parent Dermot Givens, an attorney whose son Damian got into the school through open enrollment, pointed out that his is one of the 8 percent of African-American families at the school. “It is not an all-white upper-class population,” Givens said, adding that his son is fluent in French, learning Mandarin Chinese and a member of the basketball team.

Marshall Mayotte, the school’s chief business officer, said the district’s report was a result of “sloppy work and false statements.” He pointed out that his name was mentioned 11 times for charges made on an employee business card and he was not at the restaurants that were named.

After the district voted to approve the latest notice to the school, Mayotte said, “We were caught off guard.” He said he didn’t have time to answer the summary of facts before the district made them public. The Los Angeles Daily News conducted an in-depth investigation of the school finances in May that also detailed expenses.

Tensions during the school board meeting grew so tense that board member Monica Garcia ordered: “OK, everybody breathe! Everybody breathe! There is a lot of tension and anxiety out there. What I hear is there is a lot people who support their school and want to see a solution and concern about some behavior came to light at some point. …  What I’m interested in hearing is a conversation of how to fix the issues.”

Scott Silverstein, a newly elected member of the El Camino school board and the parent of a recent graduate of the school, said, “We are more than happy to make the necessary changes.”

The schools are eligible for School Improvement Grants (SIG) money that can result in $2 million a year for five years if the school administrators decide to implement one of seven school models that will help improve their scores.

The issue was brought up at the first LA Unified School Board meeting of the school year on Tuesday. Board members also discussed whether they need to intervene with the five traditional schools that are run by Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (and are not charter schools), as well as the six other charter schools that they oversee in the district.

The surprise is that a few of them named on the list are notable and previously celebrated schools as far as past achievements, yet some of them have been identified as low performing since 2010.

The traditional district schools are:

• 107th Street Elementary
• Annalee Avenue Elementary
• Augustus F. Hawkins High School-A Critical Design and Gaming School
• Barton Hill Elementary
• Cabrillo Avenue Elementary
• Daniel Webster Middle
• Dr. Owen Lloyd Knox Elementary
• Edwin Markham Middle
• Florence Griffth Joyner Elementary
• George Washington Carver Middle
• George Washington Preparatory High
• Samuel Gompers Middle School
• Tom Bradley Global Awareness Magnet Elementary
• Westchester Enriched Sciences High School Magnets- Health/Sports/Medicin

The charter schools are:

• Alain Leroy Locke College Preparatory Academy High (Green Dot)
• Animo Phillis Wheatley Charter Middle (Green Dot)
• Los Angeles Leadership Academy High
• Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Middle (ICEF)
• North Valley Military Institute College Preparatory
• Wallis Annenberg High (Accelerated School Foundation)

The list from the California Department of Education only slightly differs with the low-achieving list from the CORE district ratings which also included Century Park and Hillcrest Drive elementary schools and David Starr Jordan and Dr. Maya Angelou Community high schools.

The list of 291 schools throughout the state of low-performing schools identify 20 in LA Unified, one in Los Angeles County Office of Education (Soledad Enrichment Charter High) and one in Long Beach (Jordan High). In Los Angeles County, there are 12 other school districts with schools named in the lowest 5 percent of state schools.

The state’s lowest 5 percent of schools was based on 2015 math and English assessment scores, graduation rates based on four years of data, the English learner indicator of the past two years, suspension rates over two years and college and career indicators.

Among the charter schools, the 3-year-old North Valley Military Institute is the only one of its kind in LA Unified and is championed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Wallis Annenberg High’s Accelerated School’s elementary school was named by TIME magazine as the “Elementary School of the Year” for its impressive approach to education, and has boasted years of 90-plus percent graduation rates.

Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Middle is getting a new building, and ICEF CEO Parker Hudnut said they have hired new experts in math that are joining the staff.

Among the traditional schools, the Augustus High School Critical Design and Gaming School has been noted for its innovation in computer science, while the successes at George Washington Preparatory High were chronicled in a movie starring Denzel Washington who played then-Principal George McKenna, who is now a school board member.

George McKenna

McKenna said he is unhappy with the low performance of a school where he gained his academic legacy, but said, “Our role is not to play ‘gotcha’ and I know some people have that perception. But if you have that perception you may think we’re in some way an intruder on someone else’s autonomy or freedom and they should be left alone. We need your help, we are the district and we have responsibility. If it’s our property, it’s our responsibility, it’s our kids. We have an obligation to insist and inform otherwise we are enabling or are complicit in negative outcomes and deficits.”

McKenna and other board members approved allowing the 14 traditional schools to apply for the SIG money, but they expressed concerns about how to help the charter schools that they were not voting on Tuesday with SIG applications. Those charter schools must apply on their own, and McKenna also wondered about the five Partnership schools that the district co-runs as part of the nonprofit started in 2008 by former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Of the 18 Partnership schools they now run in LAUSD, five of them are on the district’s list of 14. Four of those five have been on the list since 2010, and have received extra money to help improve their test scores. Partnership’s CEO Joan Sullivan was unavailable to comment.

The money used to help the schools could be something that must sustain their progress, said board member Monica Ratliff. She said, “The schools begin to rely on the funding for the purchased positions, and then they lose those positions and it causes a lot of heartache on those campuses. If they bring up achievement levels maybe they do need those positions, and then suddenly those resources are not there anymore, and you’re out of luck.”

According to a national report when the schools were helped first in 2010, generally 69 percent of the schools helped for three years saw an increase in math, but 30 percent saw declines and 2 percent had no change.

School board President Steve Zimmer said he wanted to know for sure where money was spent to pinpoint interventions to see how they worked. He said he supported the Partnership schools and wanted to help.

“As far as charter schools, we feel these things shouldn’t happen,” Zimmer said about the list including independent charters. “We are granting the level of autonomy from the ed code that charter schools get and then results should follow them and not get deeper.”

Zimmer noted that the school board took a “leap of faith” in approving Green Dot charter renewals and said their two schools on this state list indicate “this should green-light more collaboration and I hope that it won’t be punitive, and would be a lot of engagement.”

George Bartleson, chief of School Choice at LA Unified, said the district has helped with partnered schools in the past, and there was a time when someone from the central office was assigned to schools to help.

David Tokofsky, a former LA Unified school board member who works for the principals union, pointed out that the school board and superintendent should have more scrutiny of the charter schools that will be getting the extra $2 million a year, especially if they continue to remain on the state’s improvement list.

LA Unified originally had 31 persistently low-achieving schools on the list. Eight schools are still receiving money from past SIG funding, according to a report by Frances Gipson, the chief academic officer. The district has to submit their applications for the schools to the state by Sept. 8.

Gipson said schools are already “discussing the selection of the intervention model that will best benefit their school culture.”

Principal Richard Ramos with Dominga Verduzco.

Haddon Elementary Avenue School is so in demand that families want to drive their children across the San Fernando Valley from Granada Hills to attend the Pacoima school.

Haddon is not a charter school, it’s not a new pilot program and it’s not a magnet school (yet). It’s a traditional Title 1 district school in a low-income Latino neighborhood that has been there since 1926.

But it wasn’t always growing. And in fact it had to fight district rules that prohibited families from moving to the school.

Five years ago, parents were so fed up with the school that they initiated a “parent trigger” to try to take over the school from the district. The trigger was never pulled, and a new principal came in who brought programs students wanted, like a Mariachi class, a robotics program and an award-winning speech and debate team.

“We are certainly an anomaly in the district, and I’m learning now that part of my job is to figure out how to be competitive and promote the school,” said Haddon Principal Richard S. Ramos, who has worked with the charter school group Partnerships to Uplift Communities and on dozens of successful electoral campaigns, most recently for Robert Gonzales to the San Fernando City Council in 2012. “We have to figure out better ways to get the word out about what we’re doing that’s good in our schools.”

Soon students were clamoring to transfer to the school — a welcome change especially as without the new enrollment, the school faced a loss of teachers.

Then came the curve ball. District administrators said “No!” to the families who wanted to transfer to Haddon.

The district wouldn’t allow students to transfer because it wasn’t a pilot or magnet or charter school. Families weren’t allowed to leave their home schools to attend Haddon. One family was pleading to get in because their daughter loved robotics, and the parents were willing to drive nearly an hour every day to bring her to the school.

“They have parents wanting to come in, and I don’t understand why it’s not allowed?” school board member Monica Ratliff said at a board meeting this spring after she heard about the issue.

District administrators listened to Ratliff. They worked it out so that applicants could say they wanted to transfer to the school because similar programs were not offered at their home schools. Parents’ requests needed to include a waiver form that explained the programs offered at Haddon were not offered elsewhere.

Removing that roadblock resulted in unprecedented growth for the school unlike any other school in the area. The principal noted that Haddon has had increased enrollment for the past two years. In fact, he said that 39 of the new students he has this year are transferring from charter schools.

“We are in a time now where the entire district is seeing declining enrollment,” Ramos said on the first day of the new school year on Tuesday. For the past decade, the school enrollment was on a steady decline. The school now has an enrollment of more than 900, with a capacity of 960.

Mariachis at Haddon. (Courtesy: Haddon)

Ratliff, who was at Haddon on Tuesday for the first day of school, said she was a bit irritated about the district’s initial response late in the school year.

“It should not be up to a board member to have to bring this up at a meeting to promote that a school is doing well,” Ratliff said. “Everyone on the administrative level should be helpful in a situation like this,” Ratliff added. “I’m glad the district was listening and no one stymied the efforts of this great principal.”

Ratliff pointed out that many principals at traditional district schools have great programs that no one hears about, and the district should be better at promoting those programs. She said charter schools do their own promotion and have learned to become competitive for students, so the district schools should too.

Monica Ratliff greets volunteers on the first day of school.

“Our principals haven’t had time to promote their programs,” Ratliff said.

One solution for Haddon is that the school will apply to become a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Magnet Academy. That proposal will come before the school board in January. Ratliff said she would be stunned if it doesn’t get approved. When it becomes a magnet school, the school will have open enrollment and anyone can apply from within the district.

Superintendent Michelle King repeatedly brings up sharing best practices and touting and promoting district school successes. The LA Unified Communications Department launched LAUSD Daily last year and LAUSD Shines, which shares school successes. They place posters in schools and throughout the district to encourage principals, teachers, parents and students to share their stories.

“I am realizing I have to be competitive with our school,” Ramos said. “People don’t hear about our great programs unless they hear about it in the laundromat or at a soccer game.”

Before Ramos came to the school, parents at Haddon organized a parent union chapter to initiate a parent trigger and began gathering signatures in 2011, aided by Parent Revolution, which helps with parent trigger movements at failing schools.

But in January 2013, parents voted to put the process “on pause.” The following month, teachers at the school voted to institute a series of reforms by becoming a Local Initiative School, a reform model that allows some autonomy from district policies, such as in hiring.

“We were unhappy, and the district brought in a new principal and the parents are now happy,” said Dominga Verduzco, who was president of the parent chapter. “They implemented new programs and a curriculum and brought in a principal who puts kids first. We like what he is doing,” Verduzco said Tuesday as she helped give out school supplies donated by the nonprofit Rainbow Packs.

Haddon’s speech and debate team. (Courtesy: Haddon)

This is the last year at the school for Verduzco’s fifth-grader, and she is proud of the changes she helped create.

The teachers voted 29 to 2 in favor of the STEAM program to come to the school, and Ramos said they all stepped up to improve the school curriculum. Test scores are still not up to par, with the latest scores showing English and math at 18 and 11 percent meeting or exceeding standards, respectively, and 5 percent chronically absent. They expect to see improvements soon.

“Some of the special programs we have are electives that kids don’t see until middle school,” Ramos said.

Not only are the Mariachi classes a big draw, but the students can choose gardening, cooking, computers and photography thanks to the nonprofit Woodcraft Rangers, which offers after-school activities and clubs that align with Common Core standards. Do It Yourself Girls also comes to campus and helps introduce girls to professions such as engineering, construction and other traditionally male professions.

Another plan Ramos has for the school is to make it a dual language school.

“Although most of the students are bilingual, it is not a good Spanish, it is more colloquial and they could benefit from a dual language program,” Ramos said.

He wants to get the school’s test scores up, but the principal said he already notes some major changes. The attendance rate is increasing, chronic absences are down, and even teacher attendance increased from 69 percent to 79 percent.

This year, the school has a new director for the parent center, and the school was picked to be part of the Early Language Literacy Plan that works to make sure students read by third grade. The school is also starting a new Eureka math program — and explaining all the changes to parents along the way.

“People are wanting to come to school, and that’s a good thing,” Ramos said.

Meanwhile, Ratliff, who is running for Los Angeles City Council and will be leaving the school board, said she hopes the district will take note of the successes at Haddon.

“People do a lot of head nodding at the district level, but all administrators should be on the same page with helping schools like this succeed,” Ratliff said.

Riley Gantt, 16, created the Rainbow Packs giveaway.

For six years, 16-year-old Riley Gantt has gathered her family and friends to go to schools in the northeast San Fernando Valley to give backpacks to students who need them.

It grew from a field trip she took as a 9-year-old from her comfortable neighborhood in Sherman Oaks to a less-privileged section of the Valley in Pacoima. There she met a girl who didn’t have the school supplies she needed.

“She asked her mother for skinny crayons and her mother said she couldn’t afford it, and it broke my heart,” Riley said. “I wanted to get her those crayons.”

By the next year, she returned to Haddon Avenue Elementary School and raised enough money to give every child there a free backpack. Now, with a team of volunteers including her mom and dad, Leanna and Brad Gantt, Riley leads a nonprofit team that hands out backpacks and school supplies to children at four Title I schools at LA Unified.

More than 4,500 backpacks will be handed out these first two days of school at Haddon, Telfair Avenue, Pacoima Charter and Sara Coughlin elementary schools in the mostly Latino neighborhoods. More than 1,500 will go to the independent Pacoima Charter, and Riley points out that there is a big misconception that charter schools do not have the same needs or have access to more resources.

“These supplies are meant for students to have at home, where they may not have the same access to notebooks or pencils,” Riley said.

Richard Ramos, Haddon’s principal, gave Riley a big hug when she arrived Tuesday and said, “The students are so excited that Rainbow Packs is coming back to the school.”

Diana Mendez gets her free school notebook.

Local District Northeast Interim Superintendent Susan Allen greeted Riley, as did School Board member Monica Ratliff, who said, “I’ve been a fan of Riley and what she has done ever since I’ve been on the school board.”

Ratliff said she has seen how Riley figured out how to reach every student with the giveaways and how to streamline the process. Yolanda Fuentes, district director for Los Angeles City Councilman Felipe Fuentes, aided Riley’s passion from the beginning, and was there helping six years later.

“She is an amazing young woman and an inspiration to the kids,” Yolanda Fuentes said.

Riley, who takes classes through an online school, said she loves school and told the students how in the past she aspired to be an astronaut, the president, a writer, a videographer and even a dolphin.

“I absolutely love school and wanted to be so many things when I grow up,” Riley told the incoming kindergartners. “When you are in school, you can learn about things you may want to do for a career, or if it’s just fun.”

Sgt. James Ream of LA Unified police attended the distribution and said he has long been supportive of Riley’s giveaway. He told the students at the school, “Those of us in uniform who you may see at the school have come to protect you. If you see a police officer, we’re your friends.”

One of the first in line was Diana Mendez, who held up her notebook proudly. “I didn’t need a backpack, because I have one, but I really did need this, and I love it,” Mendez said. “I’m thankful for Riley, and I don’t even know her.”

Michelle King announced a record 75 percent graduation rate at her first State of the District address as superintendent of LA Unified, “a district on the move,” she proclaimed Tuesday.

King noted that the 75 percent rate is based on “preliminary data” as she addressed 1,500 principals, assistant principals and district administrators at the annual kick-off to the school year, held at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.

“We are a district on the move,” King said after her speech, when asked what she wants the general public to know about the second-largest school district in the country. “The movement and trajectory is from the earliest youth, pre-K and not just stopping at high school but through college. Right now our preliminary data shows that the class of 2016 is at 75 percent graduation. It Is supposed to be as high as we can get it. It is better than we’ve done in the past. Last year was 72 percent, and we’ve exceeded that.”

The graduation rate jumped nearly 3 percentage points over last year despite a new requirement that students pass a rigorous college-prep curriculum in order to earn a diploma. The slate of classes known as the “A-G curriculum” qualifies students to attend California’s public universities.

Michelle King at her first State of the District address.

She added, “This is exceeding expectations of those who said our students couldn’t do it. Today we say our students can and will thrive to meet the standards to be college-ready.”

The theme of King’s address was “A District on the Move,” and she introduced a promotional video of the same name showing the district’s successes. She also emphasized that “we’re in it together,” and she peppered her speech with more than a dozen names of principals and administrators in the audience that she congratulated for their successes.

Among those she called out included: California’s National Distinguished Principal Marcia S. Reed of 186th Street Elementary School in Gardena; teachers Anthony Yom and Sam Luu and Principal Jose Torres of Lincoln High School who helped every student pass the demanding Calculus Advanced Placement examinations; and Hesby Oaks Leadership Charter Principal Movses Tarakhchyan who required all of his staff to learn CPR and then saved a cafeteria worker when she collapsed this year.

“Together we are turning the tide in a district on the move,” King said. “We are at our best when we are unified and working together as a team.”

All of the school board members except Ref Rodriguez and Richard Vladovic attended the speech, held one week before the Aug. 16 start of school. School board President Steve Zimmer gave a rousing introduction, calling King “not only the best but most qualified leader in public education in the United States.”

Zimmer thanked his fellow board members, school police and principals for their response to the terrorist threat that closed down the schools on Dec. 15. “We hope that never happens again, but if it does, LA became the model on how we all come together and work together and be strong together in the face of danger.”

Marcia Reed, in white sweater, was one of the principals honored by Michelle King.

King noted safety as a top priority. “As I talk to parents, one topic that continuously emerges is school safety in this time when the headlines are dominated by tragedy and violence. Our students, families and employees want to feel safe, and I am committed to ensuring that they do.”

King also announced:

• Preliminary results of last year’s Smarter Balanced Assessments show that some math and English scores have improved by as much as 7 percent.

• Nearly 200 Title III coaches for English learners have been added.

• 1,000 classrooms in bungalows will be replaced this year with new, modern classrooms.

• Linked Learning will expand to 20,000 students.

• 16 new magnet schools will start this year, including firefighter academies at Wilson and Banning high schools and the very first robotics magnet at Mulholland Middle School.

• There have been 20,000 fewer days lost to suspensions over the last three years thanks to the district’s restorative justice program.

• Nearly 90 programs will offer Arabic, Armenian, Mandarin, Korean and French this year, and multilingualism will be required throughout LA Unified.

• The district is working on a plan to allow more students to earn community college credits while they are still in high school.

• A landmark academy for gifted students and gifted students with autism is coming to the district.

• The district has distributed more than 342,000 instructional technology devices and will expand online gradebook pilots to 54 schools this year, with full districtwide implementation planned for the 2017-2018 school year.

• Students will receive more support. A specialized counselor will be assigned this year to high-needs high schools, helping students stay on track to graduate, while college and career coaches support struggling middle schools. Additional resources will be dedicated to help English-language learners, who make up nearly one-third of LA Unified’s enrollment.

King’s speech brought the principals to their feet for a standing ovation at least three times. Many of the administrators arrived on buses provided by the district, and they divided up afterward into groups such as “new principals” and other groups for professional development training.

Some of the biggest applause and whoops from the crowd came when King discussed “decentralization” and allowing “greater decisions to be made by the school community.”

King touted her “listen and learn” tour, the successful relocation of two schools during the Porter Ranch gas leak and the “Promising Practices” forum with charter and traditional educators which she wants to make a biannual event.

She pointed out that the “district is facing a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars and we need to prioritize investments in what gives greater results,” and added, “We are spending more money than we are taking in.” She pointed out that the people in the audience could help by making school more attractive, because the district could save $42 million by raising the attendance rate by 1 percent. She pointed out that around Garfield High are banners on Atlantic Boulevard of successful high school graduates, and that keeps students wanting to come back.

She gave props to Kim Bruno, the teacher who created a play about the LA riots at the Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, Shelby Sims, who transformed Western Avenue Elementary School into a technology hub with an annual technology fair, and Garry Joseph at Millikan Middle School who won a Fulbright Award  to connect students with those in India to collaborate on a science fair.

She also honored longtime activist Scott Folsom who died last week, calling him “the conscience of the district” and saying he would be truly missed.

The Garfield High JROTC color guard and cadets brought out the flags at the opening of the ceremony, the Verdugo Hills High School choir sang, Danielle Rawles from Westchester Enriched Science Magnet High recited the Pledge of Allegiance and Eileen Garrido from Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts sang the National Anthem, receiving a standing ovation.

“It is critical that we continue the momentum of all these efforts through the year,” King said. “We have to keep it moving.

“All students can succeed.”

Three people in the last 10 days have filed with the city Ethics Commission an intent to raise money to challenge Monica Garcia for school board in District 2, and one person has entered the race for the vacant seat in District 6, which is held by Monica Ratliff, who is running for City Council.

Manuel Aldana Jr., Walter R. Bannister and Berny Motto have joined Carl Petersen in challenging Garcia.

Araz Parseghian will run in District 6 and is the only candidate to declare an intent to do so.

Campaign finance reports show Garcia dominating in early fundraising. She raised about $120,000 in the first six months of this year. Petersen, who ran unsuccessfully in 2015 for the District 3 seat, raised $805 in the same period.

District 2 covers East LA, Pico-Union, downtown Los Angeles and its surrounding neighborhoods and is heavily Latino. Garcia, who was board president for an unprecedented six consecutive years, was first elected in that district in 2006.

District 6 covers the east San Fernando Valley. Ratliff was elected in 2013. She filed an intent to run for a City Council seat in March.

Parseghian filed an intent to run for the seat on Aug. 2.

The primary election will take place on March 7. Also running are Board President Steve Zimmer in District 4, who is seeking re-election against challenger Nick Melvoin. Melvoin has raised about $124,000, compared to Zimmer’s $7,300, according to city filings.

School board candidates officially file for the race in November, but they can begin to raise money and declare their intent to do so with the Ethics Commission.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes in the March 7 primary, the top two vote-getters go on to compete in the May 16 general election.

Bell High School’s library before and after. (From LAUSD)

For the first time since some school libraries were shuttered during budget cuts in 2008, all of the LA Unified school libraries will be back up and running when school starts again on August 16.

But according to the latest district estimates, the majority of students across Los Angeles will still be forced to rely on under-stocked library collections filled with outdated materials.

District numbers show that the average age of a book in a LAUSD library is now more than 20 years old, and that the books-per-student ratio is a shocking 35 percent below the state average. Even more dire: Most district schools have only a minimal budget to spend on bridging this gap—if they have any additional library funds at all.

“The libraries are still woefully inadequate, and some librarians are loath to take some off the shelves because they will remain empty,” said Franny Parrish, the political action chairwoman for the California School Employees Association, the union that represents library aides. “We have actually come across books with titles like ‘One Day We Will Put a Man on the Moon’ and that’s absurd. You can’t give obsolete information out, it’s a disservice to the students.”

Some school libraries were closed well before the 2008 cuts — stretching back 10 or even 15 years — and some principals decided to completely close the school libraries rather than depend on parent volunteers to run them, since they may mix up books and cause more confusion. Also, some libraries are staffed through funding by PTAs, and books are replenished by book fairs or school fundraisers, meaning that school libraries in more affluent areas now bear little resemblance to those in poorer neighborhood.

Manchester Elementary School’s library before and after. (LAUSD)

“It’s wrong to be pimping out our children by having them sell candy to raise money for books or to pay for a library aide,” Parrish said. “It’s offensive. A library should be a necessity for every school.”

Concerned about the decline of school libraries, school board member Monica Ratliff initiated a Modern Library Task Force that issued a report in June 2014 that suggested three years of strategies for the district try to reach the California school library standard of 28 books per student. At the time, LA Unified had only 17.6 books per student.

Today, district numbers show, that number has only increased 1.1 percent to 17.8 books per student.

Monica Ratliff reading a book to children at a classroom.

“It is good news that we have the renewed staffing because libraries were literally shuttered, and that was not appropriate,” Ratliff told the LA School Report. “The bad news is the book collection is out of date and too thin.”

Ratliff said the district must figure out how to update the books and find donors willing to help. All the books now at the district are worth an estimated $205 million.

“I’m sure there are book lovers out there who would want to help purchase books for our kids,” said Ratliff, whose staff looked into an update of the libraries a few weeks ago. “I interacted with some Library Aides and I appreciate that they do try to buy books of interest to students and that are Common Core-related. We just need more resources.”

The second-largest school district in the country has not had a major influx of books for its libraries since some state funding between 1999 and 2002, according to district officials. In 2011, as part of a civil rights settlement with the federal government, LA Unified had to pay for Library Aides at 80 schools with significant African-American student populations. Library Aides are usually hired for elementary schools and Teacher Librarians hired at middle and high schools can also teach classes.

“We cannot depend on parents to buy books for the libraries, it will just create more disparities in different parts of the district,” Ratliff said. “And we still need to improve staffing.”

The Teacher Librarian-to-student ratio at LA Unified is one Teacher Librarian for every 5,784 students, which is far below the national average of one for every 1,026 students. (The recommended ratio by Modern School Library Standards is one for every 785 students).

Under Superintendent John Deasy, librarians and aides were considered unnecessary and cut during the recession, but his successor Ramon Cortines vowed to reopen all of the libraries starting with high schools. Now, Superintendent Michelle King has renewed efforts to get libraries opened at all the schools again by rehiring staff, but it’s a far cry from the more than 800 Library Aides once working at the district.

Elementary schools with smaller libraries (10,000 books or fewer) usually hire Library Aides, and this year, the district has 356 of them, with 184 paired to support two school sites. Of those, 133 are assigned six hours a day at a single site and 39 are assigned three-hours at a single site, according to district spokesperson Monica Carazo. Only three Library Aide positions are vacant and are expected to be filled before the beginning of school, Carazo said.

Of 85 middle school libraries, 38 have full-time positions funded while four have part-time positions. Other positions are paid with discretionary money from the school funding, sometimes with help from PTA groups.

Of the 84 high school libraries, including span schools from 4th to 12th grades, 74 have full time Teacher Librarians who also teach classes, and 10 schools have part-time positions.

The district built 130 new schools in the past 15 years and so those book collections are newer, and the district is emphasizing their use of a “weeding” process to cull older books.

Walter Reed Middle School’s library at open house.

But after books are weeded, there’s no money to buy replacements.

The budget for new books last year for Tiffiny Federico at Walter Reed Middle School in Studio City was $1,800 — about $1 per student. That’s how much they raised at the Scholastic Book Fair, selling books to students and parents, with a percentage going back to the school to buy books for a classic library with high ceilings built as part of the FDR Work Progress program in 1938.

“My goal this summer was to research some grants and figure out how to do the Donors Choose and make inroads into the community with the parents to make the library survive this year,” Federico said. “I got rid of a lot of books, many of them hadn’t been checked out for decades, and I have no budget for more books.”

After 22 years of teaching English at Reed, Federico took over the Librarian Teacher position last year and began looking through the 22,000 catalogued items they have, including VHS tapes and DVDs. She weeded out about 10 percent of damaged and outdated books.

In her first year of training, Federico heard about other school libraries that were re-opening after 15 years and getting their inventory online. She teaches students at every grade level how to conduct research and use the LA Unified’s 18 data systems, how to find sources, and how to avoid plagiarism.

“Students feel comfortable coming here,” Federico said about her library. “During nutrition [class] we will have 50 or 60 kids coming in, playing with Pokemon cards or their role-playing games, or kids who didn’t do their homework, or some wandering around looking at books. There is always a line for the 12 computers.”

The library is one of the hubs of the school, and home to those training for the Spelling Bee, the Knitting Club and the Doctor Who Club that Federico runs. It is open at least 35 hours a week, before and after school and during lunch.

“If the students can’t find something, I send them to the North Hollywood Library where they have a big Manga (Japanese comic book) collection, and I tell the kids to ask them for a book because they have better funding to purchase it,” Federico said.

Only two years ago, nearly 65 percent of the LA Unified school libraries in elementary and middle school were completely shut down, so Federico said she sees some hope that things are changing. “Michelle King knows the importance of having a vibrant working library, and I get a good vibe that they see the importance of how a library can be the heart of your school,” Federico said. “In the past, Deasy thought libraries were a waste of money.”

To keep students coming back, Federico is planning a section of the library called a Maker Station that includes art supplies and science kits for students to work and create things.

The book theft detection device at Walter Reed that doesn’t work.

Another issue for Reed, and a big secret, is that the book detection bars at the doors of the library haven’t worked for at least two years. The scanners are supposed to sound off if an unchecked book passes through it.

“We keep them up because it still serves as a deterrent and the kids think it still works, but it will cost about $13,000 to replace it, and that’s unlikely to happen,” Federico said.

Lost or stolen books are yet another problem. Books cost about $25 each to replace, not including the cost of processing and filing them.

“Millions of books are missing because the libraries have been closed for so long,” said Parrish, who works at Dixie Canyon Community Charter School in Sherman Oaks. “If I were to tell you that at one school there was $75,000 worth of computers missing, people would flip out, but if it’s $75,000 worth of books missing from the library no one really addresses that.”

Meanwhile, the district’s Integrated Library Text Support Services promotes its library services and even has a photo gallery of libraries before and after as they are renewed and re-opened.

Ratliff said the replenishing of books has to be a priority for the school board. She said, “When introduced early, children love reading, they love books, and they love the library. I do think that we can find people who will want to donate to this cause.”

A groundbreaking summit that plans to share best practices between LA Unified traditional school and charter school educators is at capacity with more than 350 people signed up for the Saturday event planned by Superintendent Michelle King.

From the moment she was appointed to the position in January, King said she planned to find ways to share best practices between educators at magnet, charter, pilot and traditional schools resulting in this Promising Practices Forum scheduled all day at the Sonia Sotomayor Learning Academies in Cypress Park. But don’t expect to just drop in to attend.

Although the event was free and open to the public for registration of 350 seats in early June, the registration closed on July 8. According to district spokesperson Monica Carazo, “We are at capacity and cannot accommodate any other participants.”

The event will kick off with school leaders such as King, school board President Steve Zimmer, board members Ref Rodriguez and Monica Ratliff as well as Local District South Superintendent Christopher Downing and Local District Northwest Superintendent Vivian Ekchian. They also expect Antonia Hernandez, president of the California Community Foundation, 
Yvette King-Berg, executive director of the Youth Policy Institute, and other LA Unified and charter school leaders.

Rodriguez and King plan to lead a panel discussion at the beginning of the event. Rodriguez spearheaded a resolution recently asking the superintendent to report back to the board after identifying successful programs and potential funding sources.

The forum is a culmination of King’s seven-month “listen and learn” tour as superintendent, and she is well aware of the divisiveness and conflicts that have occurred between traditional and charter schools with issues involving student safety, school choice, charter co-locations, teaching assessments, equitable funding, union disputes and general distrust among parents.

The forum will feature more than two dozen breakout sessions where school experts plan to share ideas and successful strategies for improving learning, parent engagement and school climate.

Results from this and other meetings will form the basis of King’s three-year plan for the district.

“We are all LA Unified school students,” King said at a previous forum with parents when asked about what she thought of charter schools. “It is unfortunate we have labels, saying that this one is better than that one. It’s not us versus them.”

Monica Ratliff is launching her City Council campaign.

Monica Ratliff got up from a picnic table in a shady corner of Sunland Park and walked over to a couple of moms chatting as they watched their toddlers play. “Hi, I’m going to be recording an interview over here and I just wanted to let you know in case we pick up some of your voices.” 

What they didn’t know was that this interview marked the launch of a Los Angeles City Council campaign — and the beginning of the end of a four-year run on the Los Angeles Unified School Board.

Ratliff is known as a stickler for transparency. In fact, her meticulousness about procedures has even become the brunt of jokes at the school board. Former Superintendent Ramon Cortines kidded Ratliff at his final State of the District speech last year for her habit of “asking just one more question after we tirelessly answered 20 before.” Even Ratliff regularly acknowledged at board meetings that some of the LA Unified staff would probably prefer to duck for cover when she unleashes her barrage of questions.

Now Ratliff hopes to bring that scrutiny to the city of Los Angeles. She’s already researched issues as far ranging as horses, housing, high-speed rail and jobs for her district. But she’s also hoping to educate the city council about, well, education.

Although she filed to run in March, she expressly said she didn’t want to discuss her candidacy until the school year ended because she didn’t want the distraction from her teaching duties or the important decisions with the school budget, which was passed last week. She also didn’t want it to be on school board time, or at her district office.

And so, for more than an hour, Ratliff met with LA School Report at one of her favorite local coffeeshops, the Back Door Bakery, and at Sunland Park to discuss how she’s planning to bring education to city government.

“Actually, one of the main reasons I’ve been so motivated to do this is that I don’t think the city has been very involved with schools,” Ratliff said. “I think they’re totally hands off when it comes to schools.”

If Ratliff wins next May, local schools will be more than a backdrop for City Council photo opps.

• Read more: One Monica in, one Monica out: How the LAUSD school board will change

At 46, the lawyer-turned-teacher declared she is running for Council District 7 in the northeast corner of the San Fernando Valley when Felipe Fuentes decided not to seek re-election. So far, 18 people are running for the seat. Ratliff’s campaign manager is her fiancé, screenwriter Chuck Kanganis, whom she is planning to marry next March, the same month as the primary. She rented a home in Sun Valley from 2002 to 2007 and since 2008 she’s been living in an apartment in Sunland, so she knows the area well and has seen significant changes.

She grew up in Phoenix, daughter of a Mexican immigrant mother and Anglo-American father, who died when she was a teen, leaving her to help her mom raise her two brothers. She went to Columbia Law School on a scholarship, earned her law degree and worked with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Neighborhood Legal Services and even acted in a Lionsgate movie, “Battle Force,” before getting her master’s degree in education at UCLA. Since 2001 she’s taught third, fourth and fifth grades at San Pedro Elementary and recently taught English Language Development at La Cañada Unified.

“I was so incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to work with students again. The students, teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators and parents are great. I ended this school year with lots of plans for next year. I hope to be back there in August.” Although she has no children of her own, she feels like she has had plenty.

So far, no one is running to replace Ratliff in her District 6 school board seat, and she plans to remain there until the end of her term on June 30, 2017.

Here are excerpts of her interview, edited for length.

Q. What prompted your final decision to leave the school board and run for the city office?

“It was still up in the air until recently. I filed, but it wasn’t until I saw how we were graduating kids and I realized we were in great shape. I think (the latest school superintendent) Michelle King has done a phenomenal job. She cares about this district, she wants this district to succeed, she grew up in this district.

“I think we’re constantly bringing in superintendents from other places that may or may not have a love for this district. She has that, this is her world, it’s her baby. She loves these schools, these kids, these staff members, she wants this to work. She’s done an amazing job of quietly, kind of behind the scenes, making decisions that are meant to put the district back on a stable financial footing and our kids are graduating at a much higher rate because of her ‘all hands on deck’ approach.

Walking door to door in her last campaign.

“I feel comfortable that I’m leaving the district in really good shape.”

Ratliff is chairperson of the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee and led a committee to help uncover the iPad scandal. She’s made it no secret that her primary goal is to put the district on the path toward financial stability. A regular school board meeting day could last nine hours and require more than 1,000 pages of supplemental material to digest. A lot of it deals with contracts that are tough even for someone with a law degree like Ratliff to understand.

Q: Are you confident that the district is going to be financially stable?

“I am confident that if Michelle King stays as superintendent and my fellow board members are focused on the reality of our situation then yes, absolutely.”

Q: You are known for taking deep dives into the finances and contracts and have even been complimented by your fellow board members for doing so. Will that kind of scrutiny be lost when you leave the school board?

“No, I don’t think so because what is amazing, they will do it. When I first got on the board, it was a little lonely because I was complaining about contracts or bringing something up. Now there are more board members, like (Richard) Vladovic and (school board President Steve) Zimmer who are more likely to say, ‘I have a problem with that contract.’

“We need an all hands on deck approach with the board members too.”

When Ratliff was elected to the board, her closest allies perhaps were Marguerite LaMotte and Bennett Kayser. LaMotte died in office, and Kayser was voted out of office in the last election.

Since then, Ratliff forged allies among the board. Two fellow board members, Vladovic and Ref Rodriguez, have already pledged support for her city council campaign, and a state legislator will soon announce an endorsement.

Ratliff personally called each board member before filing in March to privately tell each of her intention to run for city council. She received support from them all, she said.

Q: You have been on a board with seven very diverse board members with very different opinions and some would say it was like herding cats. So why would you want to go to a situation where there are 15 council members and 15 cats to herd? 

“If I’m fortunate enough to get on the city council, I believe I will be able to find areas of agreement with the various city council members.”

Ratliff said a constituent prodded her early on to run for Fuentes’ seat and pledged to donate the full $700 allowable for the campaign. That helped give her momentum.

For her school board campaign, Ratliff was up against 14 competitors and then faced a run-off against Antonio Sanchez who raised $2.2 million compared to her $52,000. She received the endorsement of UTLA, the teachers union, but specifically avoided other special interest contributors, as she plans on doing again. She won her school board seat with 52 percent of the vote, garnering 20,243 votes to 18,779 for Sanchez.

Q: Where do you see most of your support coming from for the city council race?

“I would hope ideally to get donations from my actual constituents who live in the area and support me. I’ll be honest, if I wanted to, I can pursue all the special interests, you know who they are. For the school board, I was not financed by special interests, and it’s hard because basically you have to rely on friends and family.

“You don’t need millions, you don’t even need hundreds of thousands of dollars, but you have to get your message out there.”

Ratliff said it’s tough for the average person to run for office because the system is so complex. Even with a seasoned treasurer to help with her campaign, it’s complicated to follow all the rules and record keeping.

“I don’t want to do it the way it’s always been done with a huge press conference and slick flyers. I don’t want to have the wrong people think you owe them. You do owe the voters, not the people who give money from outside the state.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Coalition for School Reform, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and LA philanthropist Eli Broad all contributed to her opponent, Sanchez. She’s ready to face the same big-money opposition in the city election.

“A lot of money came in against me, I think it can be beaten. It makes it hard though for people who don’t want to run a traditional campaign.”

Q: What do you think of the new Great Public Schools Now plan?

“I wish that they would devote some of those funds to changing the way the teaching profession is viewed and changing the way we fund education.

Ratliff in her classroom at San Pedro Elementary.

“We don’t put money where our mouth is in terms of education, it’s expensive. Education is largely going to be about the people in the classroom, the people at the school site, the people supporting them in the back office. It’s going to be about materials, it’s about access to technology and it’s about facilities.”

Q: But isn’t that just throwing more money at the problem?

“Throwing more money at it is not a bad thing. Where’s the parcel tax for education? Maybe we should target one for something specific that it’s going to be used for, like this is only going to be used for art instruction, or this is going to musical instruments.”

Q: So what can the city do?

“There are a lot of things they can do, and it’s fine if the proposal is actually neutral to the district and it is all city funded. But what I’ve learned is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and people think they’ve got an idea, and it’s like building a bridge as they’re walking on it. That does not seem to work out well.

“Now when I drive to La Cañada from here I see some stunning greenery, even in the median islands and it is with recycled water. It’s not that way in Sylmar and Pacoima. Why not? Where is the support?

“My goal has always been to try to solve problems that I see and make the biggest difference I can. When I was at Neighborhood Legal Services I saw we could love the little problems, but it was always that they were in poverty, so then I went to education. Ultimately, there are a lot of issues, like affordable housing and safe neighborhoods, where the city can make a difference.”

Q: You have been going to Neighborhood Councils a lot, volunteer groups that advise city council members. Is that one of the reasons you decided to run?

“I have been going to Neighborhood Council meetings as a school board member and they are a good way to find out what the needs are for the community.”

She mentioned things like more green spaces and more crossing guards for schools that have come up at her local Neighborhood Councils in Sylmar, Pacoima, Lake View Terrace and more. She said that constituents have told her they would like to see a movie theater in the Sunland area and maybe a Trader Joe’s grocery store.

Q: What do you think the major problems are?

“I thought omigosh the real problem people have is poverty. Then I thought if I become an educator I can help eliminate poverty. And yes, I think in many ways if you’re an educator you can help people long term get out of poverty.

“But what I’ve seen is the stress that exists on children if the community around them is still suffering the negative impacts of poverty. Every level of government can help improve the lives of our residents, which includes the children. If you can’t find affordable housing, that impacts your children. If you can’t find a good job, that impacts your children.”

Q: Your district also includes some wealthy areas, and probably the area with the most horses in Los Angeles. Are you a horse person?

“Oh yes, of course in Shadow Hills. There is an equestrian aspect to my district. I’m not a horse person per se, but I’ve thought a lot about horses. I’ve ridden horses a couple of times in my life and certainly enjoyed it and think they’re very powerful and beautiful creatures.

“What I’ve learned about horses is how they react to sound and there’s a lot of controversy about high-speed rail in my district. I’m opposed to high-speed rail coming through this area. It offers no benefits to the community. It doesn’t even stop anywhere in the community. It’s basically just using the community to run through and it’s going to have a huge impact on the horses, because horses are very sensitive to sound and they spook easily.

“And we’re going to do more research on how it will impact the schools. They’re looking at a proposed route that’s going right under Stonehurst (Avenue Elementary School in Sun Valley) and also come out half a mile away from Brainard Avenue Elementary School (in Lake View Terrace). So it just doesn’t seem very thoughtful in terms of how that’s being done.”

Q: What are some of the successes that you’ve seen as far as educational reform?

“I think it’s unfortunate that the term educational reform is co-opted by charters, but it can mean more. I think that there’s been a promotion of autonomy because of the reform movement.

“The district does make it hard with all these initiatives, and the reform movement can promote these wrap-around services in unconventional ways. For example, Pacoima Charter School has a full-time pediatrician on site, that’s amazing! They do not have the same rules, regulations and contractual responsibilities, so they can do that in a more nimble manner.”

Q: What are some necessary improvements?

“I think teacher quality is impacted by principals being able to come into the room and offer suggestions and feedback. The principals need to be instructional leaders themselves. They need to know what good teaching looks like, what it feels like, and they need to be effective communicators and need to be able to express that to the teacher.

“There has to be group practices in terms of sharing and asking for help and getting help. People have to be open to acknowledging what their weaknesses are.”

Q: What is your prognosis for the kids of LA Unified?

“I think the prognosis is good. I think LA Unified is doing a really good job in focusing on kids, and that’s clear from the increasing graduation rates over the years. It is clear from where the funding goes, the arts instruction, the magnets, the wellness centers, and I think LA’s kids are in good shape in terms of LA Unified.

“But LA Unified, and I would say a lot of school districts — I don’t care what size you are in this state — need help.

“And I would say we could do more as a society to help our school districts to support our kids.”

Latest numbers of those reassigned as “housed” employees from LA Unified.

A year after LA Unified pledged to expedite employees “housed” in teacher jails, district numbers show that there are more now than there were at this time a year ago.

According to numbers requested by LA School Report and released Wednesday, 181 LA Unified staff members are being paid to essentially do nothing while awaiting internal investigations about alleged misconduct, while the district has to hire substitutes to do their jobs.

Questions came up when school board members questioned the $15 million that was set aside in the superintendent’s budget that they approved Tuesday evening.

“So these are individuals we’re paying salaries to, and also paying for subs? They are not in the classroom?” asked board member Ref Rodriguez, turning to page 40 of the budget proposed for the next school year and pointing to the line item “Personnel with Pending Cases.” He said that $15 million “is too much, and we have to figure out how to keep moving that forward so that the taxpayers aren’t paying for someone to sit in a room, and if they are innocent they should go back to the classrooms and the money should go back to our kids.”

According to the district, as of June 22 there are 144 teachers and 37 classified employees (such as teacher’s assistants, playground supervisors, bus drivers and janitors) in what the district calls a “housed” situation, but more commonly known as the much-maligned “teacher jails.” The employees are not allowed to do any work, call anyone or be on a computer. They must report for their full day of work and then can go home. Some employees are allowed to serve their time at home as they wait for their names to be cleared. Forty-five of the cases are more than a year old.

Most of the cases (40 percent) involve sexual abuse or harassment allegations, 29 percent involve accusations of violence, and 13 percent involve “below standard performance.” The appropriate cases are referred to Los Angeles police if it’s determined a crime has been committed, and district officials said they try to expedite the cases as quickly as possible.

Last year, the numbers totaled 174 employees — 151 teachers and 23 classified employees — with 37 percent involving sexual harassment or abuse allegations and 32 percent cited for violent behavior.

The district has 26,800 teachers and 30,500 certified employees.

A 15-member Student Safety Investigation Team investigates the cases and either clears the employees or refers them for dismissal. The average length of an investigation is 75 days.

“We are constantly trying to streamline the process and complete the cases as soon as possible,” said Barbara Jones from the LA Unified communications office. “Most of these are new cases that have come up.”

Ref Rodriguez, Monica Ratliff and Richard Vladovic at the board meeting Tuesday night.

When the issue came up three and a half hours into the discussion of the budget at Tuesday’s regular board meeting, even school board President Steve Zimmer seemed shocked.

“Wait, I want to make sure of this, $15 million is the amount expected that will be centrally housed?” Zimmer asked.

Board member Monica Ratliff pointed out that the number is $5 million less than the $20 million budgeted for this past year.

LA Unified attorney David Holmquist said he thought the last number he heard was 162 cases left in that situation, which Rodriguez said “at least showed that the numbers were going down and being settled.”

But that’s not the case, according to the district’s latest accounting.

Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly explained that the $15 million is the anticipated costs “for our housed employees who are not designated to a school and we are paying for substitutes while there is pending personnel action.”

UTLA, the teachers union, has regular seminars for teachers in this situation and sought to combat the practice. The union has assigned a staff member to assist them.

Noted Los Angeles defense attorney Mark Geragos has an ongoing class-action case against the district on behalf of teacher Rafe Esquith, who was in a teacher jail and then dismissed. The case involves hundreds of teachers who found themselves in teacher jail.

The teacher jail numbers ballooned under former Superintendent John Deasy, when any teacher accused of misconduct was immediately taken out of the classroom. The practice began after the Miramonte Elementary School sexual abuse lawsuit involving former teacher Mark Berndt, which cost the district nearly $140 million. Both succeeding superintendents, Ramon Cortines and Michelle King, vowed to expedite teacher jail cases. Meanwhile, the numbers continue to grow.

School board meets at California Community Foundation.

In a series of special meetings to address looming deficits, the LA Unified school board on Tuesday reviewed potential savings of $112 million or more, but no action was taken.

The all-day discussion was the third off-site meeting held by Superintendent Michelle King to address recommendations by the Independent Financial Review Panel to stave off deficits that could reach nearly half a billion dollars in three years. The panel’s report was presented to the school board in November.

Three areas of cost savings were discussed at Tuesday’s meeting, held at the California Community Foundation a few blocks from the district’s Beaudry headquarters. In the area of food services, the panel suggested ending the practice of dipping into the general fund by about $50 million a year; changes to warehousing and moving equipment could save more than $12 million a year, and improving payroll operations and financing techniques could save $25 million to $50 million or more a year.

Some of the school board members seemed impatient and wanted to see the cost-saving measures implemented as soon as possible.

“I obviously think that if we received information in November we should be acting on some of it now. Yes, I am concerned,” board member Monica Ratliff said. “I do have a sense that the superintendent has a plan and I know she has been implementing some of the suggestions that were made. There are other suggestions that we should have done ourselves a long time ago.”

In a slice of good news, Laura Benavidez of Food Services said the Breakfast in the Classroom program has made $9 million in net revenue since it was started districtwide. “We found more efficient ways of distributing the breakfasts to every student and saved money,” Benavidez said. The district receives 85 cents a meal, and every student gets breakfast at no cost.

However, the panel report suggested that the district stop subsidizing the food services programs from the general fund and keep the costs contained to the division, instead of draining $50 million a year from the general fund. The six district food programs that include breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner serve 134 million meals a year. King said that the higher costs of fresh fruit and vegetables and antibiotic-free chicken drive up costs for the district meals.

“Others have looked to us and our district on how to manage and deal with their menus and follow suit,” King said. “We have and are trying to be as efficient as possible.”

Another cost was adding an hour to three-hour shifts for cafeteria workers so they could get benefits, which was unanimously approved in 2008. The additional costs of the 1,700 employees resulted in a larger food services budget, said Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly.

At one point there were 12 percent vacancies in food services, and now it’s 1 to 2 percent, Benavidez said.

This year 52 percent of the budget ($180.4 million) was spent on salaries and benefits while 48 percent ($168.1 million) was spent on food. That’s a total of $348.5 in expenses, and last year revenues were $321.1 million.

School board reviews budget saving ideas.

Some of the school board members said the food services program seemed to be on track, and there was little they could do to prevent spending money from the general fund.

Reilly pointed out that other school districts such as Long Beach and Bakersfield are in similar financial situations.

“While the Financial Panel suggests we immediately eliminate this $50 million, I look back and I don’t see how they expect us to do that,” Ratliff said. “It suggests careful menu planning, implementation of consistent production and controlling food costs, and it sounds like we are already doing those things. I don’t see how we can eliminate this.”

The staff also discussed saving $12 million by avoiding the moving and warehousing of equipment from a central warehouse. The idea was to explore a desk-top ordering system that eliminates warehouses and shifts the burden for storage and delivery to the retailer. The district stores high volumes of art, medical, physical education, custodial and maintenance supplies which it gets a lower cost because of bulk orders. The district had previously determined that over the last eight years they had a cost-effective model, and board member George McKenna pointed out that the warehouse employs 360 people.

Zimmer asked if some of the supplies could be sold to independent charter schools that the district oversees, and if those schools could join in the large orders for the district.

The panel report also recommended changes in the payroll system that could save $25 million to $50 million or more and improve effectiveness and efficiency. Reilly said 97,000 W2 forms come through payroll each year, with $225 million for teachers. The payroll department also receives 23,000 calls a year.

The district officials said they have explored outsourcing payroll systems and paying semi-monthly. They noted that payroll costs per check issued have decreased from $6.20 per check in 2013-2014 to $5.81 in 2014-2015, showing some savings.

Board member Richard Vladovic suggested that breaking up the district into smaller units would decentralize payroll and warehousing and create cost savings.

King said, “We have local districts and we are doing everything we can to decentralize.”

Vladovic added, “I don’t think we can sustain this organization if we continue to lose kids. Failure tends to breed more failure.”

Zimmer said, “I’m interested in being bold. We should have the single best customer service in the country.”

Pedro Noguera, distinguished professor of education at UCLA and facilitator for Tuesday’s meeting, suggested that Los Angeles is on the verge of either becoming a bankrupt school district or becoming successful.

“We don’t want to be Chicago or Detroit or Philadelphia,” Noguera said. “There are growing districts like Miami and Denver. We need to figure out what is different. We need to look at other models.”

King said that she is putting together a long-term strategic plan for the district as well as using the board’s input at these meetings for next year’s budget that will be voted on by the school board at the end of the month.

“We need to know where to put the dollars, we have to be strategic,” King said. “We cannot do it all.”